Career Development

I suppose the answer is found by looking at how you react once you land a new job.

Do you throw yourself into your work, keep your head down and breath a big sigh of relief and delight.

Or

Do you immediately start to think about the next step? Where does this job lead to? What are my options?

I think you can see who is serious about career development and who is job hunting.

It is also important that you constantly evaluate what’s important to you as a person. This may change over time. in fact it it likely to change over time or at least your awareness of what you want becomes clearer over time.

One of the reasons you should put your personality report at the centre of your career development is because it will remind you of what’s really important and protect you from making daft decisions.

16 Comments

Berora
on February 20, 2014 at 1:24 am

I am a business management consultant and my greatest frustration of all is trying to convince people that it is perfectly possible to do this type of work part-time,just like I did over the last 12 years. Unfortunately, all of my team had to go, so I’ve found myself looking for something new to do, but I am not ready to go back full-time. Another massive frustration is ageism – I am on the wrong side of 40 and this seems to matter more than the fact that I have 20 years’ experience in my field. Oh, and just like you pointed out in my summary personality profile – I can’t stand micro-managing bosses and people who don’t know what they are talking about but try to tell me what and how to do. How do I avoid those? Are there any tell-tale signs I should watch out for during an interview (assuming I get one, as even getting this far seems to be a challenge)? I do need your 3-step system…

At this point in my life, I do not think there is an ideal career for me. I have taken so many career tests that my answers change on a daily basis, so that throws off the tests. I do not think I can work for anyone anymore. I am over 50 and no companies want to hire me, Any suggestions?

I have working in the finance industry for over 20 years and have always wanted to work for myself. In my mid 40’s I think it’s the right time for me to take the next step and do something about it. Problem is that I have several ideas on what I would like to do not to mention a little nervous about it all. Trying to decide on what to do I first though it be a good ideal to find out what jobs would suit my personality so I began researching the net for prospective jobs and came across this sight.

I have been job searching since March 2012 and have made over 300 applications and had 72 interviews. I am confident of my skills and willingness to learn and would like to start a new career in my 50s. I am doing voluntary work and a Teaching course which I am enjoying, but, I would prefer to be employed. I am interested in lots of career areas. The fact that I get interviiews seems to prove employers note that my skills, experience, aptitudes and interests are relevant. Howevever, I am constantly being told others with more experience or qualifications got the job. Judging by what I see on Linkedin groups many other 40+ people have had a similar experience of job searching whilst unemployed. Due to the raising of the pension age in the UK, it is not possible to sign off, give up and retire so we have to keep going despite the frustration.

Have degree If you go for better job with career prospects you are told to go away because you lack practical experience, if you try to get some experience in low skill job you are told you are over qualified. So where do you start. Most jobs are part time so you cannot afford to move away for them as you will not earn enough to pay rental etc

The really challenge with me in advancing in my career is that I am a woman of 47 years and I have children who are in varsities, colleages and one still in primary and Im paying so much on their fees. Money and time is mostly a biggest challenge as I also spend alot of my time on my children’s education ensuring that they are doing well in school. As a result this doesn’t leave me much time to myself but having said that I’m still tryiny hard to study towards achieving my target in my career.

I have found that employers have such a large number of people going after a job that they can create a huge skills list that all applicants are compared against. Hence you have degree graduates with huge debts working part time in minimum wage jobs.

You have raised some very good points here. And for most people the problem boils down to this. We make the biggest decisions of our lives when we are mere teenagers and then spend the rest of our lives trying to fix it.

Career Development is about much more than job hunting. It’s the strategic form of job hunting.

Your Personality is such a crucial influence on your life chances.
When I left School in the 1980’s, I was lucky enough to go straight into an apprenticeship because that’s what you did if you wanted to do a real job.
The qualifications I gained have kept me employed since then but deep down, I have always known this was not my forte.

The trouble is, aged 16 you really don’t know who you are or what you want.
More and more young people are going into higher education and the competition for jobs is becoming fierce and as the world and the economy changes.
Young or old, you begin to wonder, on a personal level, am I cut out for this?
Especially important if you are getting into debt to fund your education.
The question you need to ask yourself, “am I going off in the wrong direction here?”
Many employers use sophisticated techniques to gain a feeling for your personality and aptitudes.
If you have applied for several jobs and you find you are getting nowhere, you need to stop and figure out why.
I knew I had to do this before I became disheartened.
After all, I knew I was applying for jobs I was qualified to do… So, why wasn’t I getting those jobs?
I knew I needed to seek help.
People maps is helping me do just that, after all, you need all the help you can to find where you will fit in.
Then you need to raise your game to find that job with your name on it.
Finally, you need to know how to go about getting that job.

Work is such an important aspect of life and if you get that bit wrong, it affects a lot of other aspects of your life too.
I am enjoying the course so far. It is a lot of information to take in but it’s down to earth and interesting.
This course gives you the inside track on the employment market and although you still have some training and indeed, running , it does at least give you a head start.

For me, the most frustrating thing to progress a career has always been the set-in-old-ways companies that do not give opportunities to grow and progress the career fast enough and have their ‘known’ pattern on how this works, which is applied to everybody. I always changed my job when i thought I had enough working on a certain level and was ready to progress but had no opportunities and instead, got bored of the job and started from scratch doing something different. I’ve done this at least 5 times in my life. I’m 37. I just started a completely new path in SEptember and my boss told me in December he thought i was unhappy in the role so he made the role ‘redundant’. He did this even without asking my opinion? i would have put him straight and convinced him otherwise. Had he only made that move. Well. He knows the score now, but I quit my job as the next thing i was offered was going back two steps. Frustrating?